The role of micronutrients in the diet has become well established. Commercial processes often deplete foods of essential micronutrients and/or people often lack the will to maintain a balanced diet, which leads society to being at a greater risk for debilitating diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular, and/or neurodegenerative diseases. Several cancers have been shown to be in large part preventable through changes in lifestyle, which includes a well-balanced diet.
Thus, there is a need to put back into foods and beverages the beneficial, bioactive components that are being lost in the American diet. Low cost production of nutraceuticals will enhance the ability to fortify foods and beverages with chemo-preventive and/or neuro-, cardio-protective agents, such as trans-arachidin-3 (FIG. 1B).
Arachidin-3 is a natural derivative of the well-established nutraceuticals/phytonutrient known as resveratrol (FIG. 1A, trans-resveratrol; and, FIG. 1C, cis-resveratrol), which is a key bioactive component in red wines. It is also a naturally occurring medicinal compound found in various plants such as the peanut plant, but only in low abundance. Arachidin-3 has value to humans and animals as a dietary supplement, food additive, pharmaceutical precursor (lead compound), nutraceutical, cosmeceutical, and antioxidant.
The low cost production of nutraceuticals, such as arachidin-3, requires cheap production routes via extraction from common plants and/or synthetic strategies. Extraction and synthetic strategies must satisfy regulations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use as a dietary supplement and topical compound. This limits which reagents and solvents can be used to produce the nutraceuticals because many reagents in common use in organic chemical synthesis, such as many organometallic reagents, could be toxic, and thus they must b e eliminated from downstream foods or supplements. Therefore, the development of cheap, facile synthetic strategies using non-toxic reagents can be the most economical and safe route for producing compounds that are not found in high abundance from natural plant sources, such as trans-arachidin-3.
The prior art discloses in KR20120056586A filed Jun. 4, 2012, by Lee et al, and entitled “Synthesis method of compound having a stilbene skeleton”, a method of chemically synthesizing trans-arachidin-3 using EDDA as a catalyst and benzene as a solvent, neither of which are FDA approved as food additives and topical contact substances. The reaction also comprises multiple steps that first requires reacting benzaldehyde with benzyl phosphonate in the presence of potassium tert-butoxide in THF to produce an intermediate compound (17) that is subsequently used to produce trans-arachidin-3 (see Scheme 4; Park, B. H., et. al. “Total Synthesis of Chiricanine A, Arahypin-1, trans-Arachidin-2, trans-Arachidin-3, and Arahypin-5 from Peanut Seeds,” Journal of Natural Products, 2011, 74:644-649).
Therefore, what is needed within the health industry is an economical and efficient method of chemically synthesizing a non-toxic form of trans-arachidin-3 from naturally occurring resveratrol, or synthetic resveratrol, using only solvents and catalysts that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, such that the resulting compound is deemed safe for use in mammals (e.g. for human oral consumption and topical applications). It is also advantageous if the method of synthesis is a one-chemical reaction process, and in which all of the synthesis steps can be carried out in the same container, e.g. pot.